Tribal People Try Seafood

Seafood from around the world: lobster, crab, oysters, prawns, octopus, salmon, fish roe, and preserved things like fish sauce and anchovies. Punjab is landlocked and river fish is the local tradition, so shellfish is new territory.

Lobster and crab draw a crowd before anyone eats — the shells, the tools, the effort. Prawns are known and liked. Oysters, raw, cold and slippery, are the hardest thing the channel has served, and octopus is close behind.

Rohu and other river fish, fried in masala, are winter food. Anything from the sea, especially with a shell, is looked at as a creature first and a meal second.